


Ghosts and Bats

by navaan



Category: DCU (Comics), Gotham Academy (Comics)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Gen Work, Humor, Mystery, POV Female Character, Yuletide 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 03:25:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2836277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maps loves to find out all about the strange happenings at Gotham Academy. And apparently there's a ghost in the library now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts and Bats

**Author's Note:**

  * For [illumynare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/illumynare/gifts).



“I told all of them to keep their gems ready! And then we went into the dungeon.”

“That's nice, Maps,” Olive muttered, her nose stuck in a book as they were walking across the campus. She hadn't really been listening, too caught up in her own reading, but the smaller girl beside her was gesturing excitedly and so Olive felt compelled to ask: “Did you make it?”

“Of course! I'm good at leading parties! Even Garth had to admit it this time, ha! I always find a way out of the trickiest situations.”

“That's nice,” Olive said softly.

Little Mia Mizoguchi, called Maps by everyone who knew her well, smiled brightly. “I'm really good at this stuff.”

“I know, Maps, but I'll have to go to the library look something up. I've asked Mr. Scarlet about this book...”

“The library??” 

Olive had no idea what in that sentence could have attracted Maps' attention like that and frowned. “Yes, the library.”

“Haven't you heard yet? It's haunted! There's a ghost in the library! None of my classmates wants to go there anymore.”

“Haunted,” Olive said and rolled her eyes. “Again. What place in this school _isn't_ haunted?” It was getting more than a little ridiculous at this point. People were jumping at shadows. And she knew the feeling. But other than most of the pupils at this school she had a _reason_ to be nervous and jumpy around shadows. 

These building were old, built with stones from building that had been even older. People liked to fantasize about the past and then scared themselves with their own ghost stories. There were rumors about all sorts of gruesome things, but this was Gotham and so that was normal. There were scary stories about the new buildings in the banking district that were even worse. But it was the old feel of this place that made people really take notice and scare easily.

“The cafeteria!” Maps supplied, jumping upwards in excitement. “There's no ghost in the cafeteria.” 

She pulled a sheet of paper from her school bag, neatly folded and waved it in front of Olive. “I made a map,” she explained proudly. “All the sightings. All the strange things people see or hear.” She unfolded it while walking and Olive looked at it in passing. It was hard to see much detail when Maps was still waving the paper through the air like a flag, never stopping in her excited explanations: “There! Look! Nothing noted down in the area of the cafeteria. It's all clear. I'd say it's safe there.”

“Of course, it's safe there,” Olive said reasonably, making her way towards the library without missing a beat.

“No,honestly! Look! She held up the hand-drawn map of the school grounds and pushed it towards Olive until she had to stop walking. “Someone saw a book fall out without anyone being around! And one of my classmates nearly got hit on the head by whole stack of books! Here!” She pointed at some of her scribbled down notes.

Olive just shrugged. The last thing she wanted in her life was more mystery. She'd had enough of that with the last summer. The only reason she was here, back at Gotham Academy, was that she had a scholarship and nowhere else to go. And in this place everybody was prone to see ghosts. North hall was apparently haunted and her room mate Lucy was getting more and more restless and nervous in the evenings, even when they were safely locked up in their dorm room. 

“We could check it out! It's not off limits or anything! We could stakeout there and wait for the ghost.”

“It's the library. Of course, it's not off limits,” she whispered.

They had reached the library door and Olive was about to push open the big wooden doors to step in, when they heard a male voice call out in surprise, accompanied by the loud thudding nose of things falling.

Instinctively Olive pushed the door open all the way and called: “Is everything all right? Mr. Scarlet?” 

There was a groaning sound from a few shelves away. When they reached him, the librarian was rubbing his elbow. Around him lay a stack of books. “They fell,” he said in a sour tone.

“Why?” Olive asked quietly. 

Little Maps was standing close to her, cautiously looking around her back to better see what was going on. “Did they fall on their own? Like someone pushed them?”

“Don't be silly,” Mr. Scarlett said. “There was nobody here.”

“So it was just an accident?” Olive asked, relieved. “You are all right, Mr Scarlet?”

“Of course, of course. I'm fine. But look at this mess.” He pointed at the books around him.

“Can we help?” 

“Oh, no, no. I'll take care of it.”

Maps watched him with a distrustful glint in her eyes. Olive already knew what that meant: Maps had spotted another clue for the library ghosts existence and she would not just let this topic drop and be done with it.

She knew what that meant.

She would agree to a stakeout in the library. 

With a thin smile she nodded at Mr. Scarlet. “We'll start to work on the desk by the windows if you need help.”

“Right, right,” the man said, already picking up the books and carefully examining them. She could have sworn that he muttered. “Ghosts and bats are just a terrible mix.”

Maps had heard him too, scribbling it down on her self made map right beside the other occurrences she'd noted for the library. 

When Olive sat down at the table, she flopped down in her own chair and grinned. “Told you so!”

* * *

They sat together in the library until the light of the sun was turning red, just before it was about to set. Maps had been scribbling in her little notebook the whole time, muttering about hit points and party members. Olive watched her now silently, asking herself what to do about the girls growing fascination with all these stories of the supernatural. The red streaks of light were irritating her, bringing up thoughts she really didn't want to have right now. She shook her head and looked away from her ex-boyfriend's little sister and away from the window and the sun, her gaze falling on one of the shelves. 

She shrieked as something was moving there.

Her chair fell backwards with a loud clang, as she stood frozen, staring. The little animal fluttered and vanished in the labyrinth of book shelves.

Frightened Maps jumped up from her own chair to look at whatever it was that Olive had seen. “Is that a bat? There is a bat in the library!”

“I _hate_ bats,” Olive said, her cheeks turning red. The shock was leaving her and she moved, stroking her hair back into order and pretending she hadn't just freaked out because of a little harmless bat... It wasn't because of the harmless, little ones that she didn't like bats lurking in shadows anymore.

Maps was still looking at her with worry. 

But there was more noise. 

“Ghost! No!” the muffled voice of Mr. Scarlet could be heard. And then books were falling. It sounded like a cascade, like a whole shelve had fallen.

Something was making a hissing sound, sounding right out frightening. The next thing they knew a average sized black cat was running past their desk, ears plastered to its little head and tail bushy in fright.

“A... cat?”

Mr Scarlet appeared beside them. “That's Ghost. Bats and cats just don't get along,” he remarked, face grim. “We shouldn't keep the cat in the library.” He walked away without another word of explanation, leaving the girls behind, blinking at each other surprised.

“So there _is_ a ghost in the library,” Olive concluded.

Maps started giggling, delighted by the whole turn of events.

* * *

“But Olive! We need to check this out! They say this ghost turns up in the teachers room every night!”

Olive sighed. Maps had found her newest mystery and Olive was only listening halfheartedly, pushing away the tray with her lunch and instead started to sketch a bat-signal just to strike it out again with angry strokes. 

This was an old place. And in old places everyone saw ghosts everywhere. Ghost were not what she was afraid of.

“As long as there are no bats involved,” she said, resigned to her fate.


End file.
